One way

Our women's club asked me to come teach an English lesson to the preschool/day care class they provide while the mothers are in their classes. I hesitantly agreed, knowing how much English would likely be transferred in an hour and a half to children 2-4 years old. We played duck duck goose, adapted to chicken chicken cow. We sang Old McDonald adapted to Si Mohamed. We matched animal sounds with animal names, laughing as I acted all of these out. To finish the lesson, I gave them papers and a pile of crayons to draw their own farm, chicken, cow, or monkey. With 15 kids and blank canvases, I expected this to be scribble central. On your mark, get set, go, I thought. Okay, really, go. The teacher repeated my instructions to make sure they understood. They did, but continued the hesitant stares. Thinking maybe I needed to get the ball rolling, I sat down at that mini table with knees touching my ears and began to draw on my own paper. They all continued watching as my stick figure monkey shifted shapes landing at a cross between a teddy bear and muscat. I drew a tree branch and bananas in the corner to ease any confusion, scribbled MONKEY on the top, and set my colored pencil down. All other pages were still blank. Not one defector. Confused, I slid back in my little chair, and it began. The kids, all of them, started looking for the color of crayon I used in the box. They painstakingly copied the new English letters spelling monkey with the same placement I had used. They drew the bananas, the tree, and the muscat teddy bear monkey replicating my drawing with exactness. When they were finished, they ran to show me their drawing. There was no "grrrreat, what is it?" They had brought mine along with theirs for me to judge the comparison. The kids ran out for recess. They had had a good time, the regular teachers got a little break, and I now know where to go if I ever need a photocopy.

It reminded me of another experience where I was the student at the same women's club. I went to spend some time with the ladies, and landed in a fabric painting group. My stencil was given to me to draw my flowers, and for the next hour I was scolded over my shoulder for my deviance. In the end, it was taken away and finished. Another time, I was at a school supplies store flipping through some coloring books, and realized that each blank picture had a colored replica opposite it to follow. 

I've never been able to navigate one way streets, and here in Morocco, my life has become one. There is one way to draw a monkey, one way to cook a dish, one way to arrange my ponjs, one way to run a camp, one way to be a wife, and one way to get to heaven. 

There is a lot of intersecting themes that make up the classroom experiences shared; deference to authority, collectivity, learning models, etc., and none of these can be fully explored here, but applying it broadly, this is a culture that values a one way. It is seen in concrete traditions. It is seen in national food dishes. It is seen in gender roles. It is seen in a rote learning education system and the respected practice of memorization; dialogues, textbooks, and scripture. It is seen in the nervous giggles, surprised gasps, or direct rejections when the unseen rules, big and small, are broken. The thing is, I am often unknowingly or very knowingly going the wrong way, and that is the beauty and the pain of sustained intercultural interaction

 Crossing physical or cultural borders, meeting each other, unearths values and beliefs unseen when unchallenged. I've seen my values of diversity, creativity, difference, and individuality become exaggerated. However, reflexivity reminds me that in this I also have a "one way," and mine is that there are many ways. I see many ways to draw a monkey, many ways to clean my house, many ways to come to a conclusion, many ways to succeed, pray, and live. We all value a one way street, and it is usually the one we're on. 

And what do we do with that? We giggle nervously, more aware of the confines of our knowledge and experience, more aware of the learned rules that govern us, more aware of the way we view the world, aware we think there is a 'wrong way', and we attempt to try on someone else's glasses, offering another our own pair. It has been my experience that good usually comes from that.

(On a related note and  possible future post, if you are a fan of a rote learning system or a move towards more standardized tests in America, please come see my monkey clones.)